I learned two main things from last week's class. First, I gained a better understanding of how literacy is simultaneously universal and content-specific. We all agreed that literacy is about more than just reading and writing -- it includes teaching citizenship, thinking critically, using the mind in a rigorous way, and a host of other things. Yet learning how to read as a social scientist differs from how one approaches a math problem and how one appreciates a great novel. In other words, it is all teachers' responsibility to teach students how to read their subject (it is not something that can be left to English teachers alone).
The second big idea I learned in class was that literacy is a fluid concept that must continually evolve to meet new technologies. Unfortunately, the rapid influx of technological improvements in the last decade or so has created a conservative backlash from educators. The readings showed several instances of a student's literacy capabilities being devalued or ignored because it fit outside the existing literacy paradigm -- from the struggling English student who wrote an environmental blog to the Alvermann piece about the generation gap between print-oriented teachers and technologically-sound students.
Although I consider myself to be included in the "digital natives" generation (see my comments on the other wall for more), I do worry about the possible dangers that would accompany unquestioned acceptance of all new forms of technological literacies. While blogs and websites can be valid forms of information (wikipedia tested favorably with Encyclopedia Britannica in an independent comparison), I fear the implications of non-filtered information. Even as I write this blog, I realize that no editor can critique or question my statements without my consent, regardless of the blog's relevance. I could blog that New York is on the west coast of Africa with no personal implications, while greatly diminishing existing world of (true) information. I just wonder how we could reconcile "digital immigrants'" legitimate concerns over validity with "digital natives'" desire for total inclusion and validation?
I could not access last week's blogs so I cannot confirm that you didn't officially post, but I would like to invite Anita to be one of our Sherpas for next week. If you already went, just tell me and I'll pick someone else.
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2 comments:
Great post!
It is surprising how fluid "literacy" is. We float between the dangers of defining it too broadly and having it lose its meaning and defining it too narrowly and miss the power of understanding because we are concentrating only on mechanics. It seems like each class we can spend time talking about what literacy means to us, and each week we may hear different answers.
You've given us a lot to think about here. Thank you, Mike. I like how you captured two big ideas from the night and then posed a pretty interesting question for us to continue. There is no question that your concern about digital texts is an important one but this IS a text that studetns increasingly are going to have to confront. Just like listening to a political demagogue claim one thing in a speech that is factually untrue, something about literacy that is key (it seems to me) is helping students decipher false from true information and all the misrepresentations and manipulations in between. And I suspect that is something that cuts across history and math and science, at least, and probably all of our subject areas to some degree. Understanding what are the cross-cutting competencies of literacy learning is important so that we can reinforce each other's efforts to do it no matter what subject matter but also understanding the particular, disciplinary specific literacy development issues for each subject areas is a goal in our work together this semester, too. Thanks for the post - I'll keep thinking about it.
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